The Weekend Abroad

Yo, Yosemite! A Three-Day Getaway.

As a resident of the California now, it only made sense that I venture to what I had heard toted as the mystical land of Yosemite National Park. We were only there for three nights, and despite skepticism of obtaining a campsite without having reserved ahead of time we lucked out and got a site when we arrived Friday afternoon. Word of advice though – October is probably the last acceptable month to camp in the area, as it was pretty chilly! Saturday night also saw an unfortunate amount of rain that managed to flood our tent…

Friday evening we visited Olmsted Point, and the major endeavor of our trip was hiking the John Muir Trail up to Vernal and Nevada Falls the next day. Again, we made it just in time to see some water left in the falls. The hike wasn’t too strenuous, but did consist of a good amount of stairs – I can only imagine how packed the narrow stair pathways would be during the summer. The journey was a beautiful one though, as one 7-year-old-looking girl exclaimed to me on her way down, “it is just a beautiful view up there!”.

We had a little too much fun with our European neighbors that night to take on the big hike up to Glacier Point the next morning so we drove our lazy asses up there. It’s the highest point in the park and certainly the most breathtaking one. All in all, the geographer in me totally nerded out at Yosemite’s vast topography and three days definitely was not enough!